John Lawler Quote List

Linguistics 314

10/9/96-11/27/96


(Quotes in alphabetical order, discounting initial articles.)

Can you identify the lecture or confer item from which each quote was taken?

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But now everyone has computers, and everyone can be wrong independently.

The chickens were just to get your attention.

Don't call a poet to fix your car.

German does both: belt and suspenders.

"Hang" are definite.

He budged all over the place.

I am not the Eiffel Tower.

The idioms defeat me.

I don't mean you have to have a backup singer...

If you're asking someone to take off their clothes, it generally makes a difference who you're requesting.

If you're really firing on all cylinders, you may even be doing a bit of syntax.

It's about noodles...and a few other things.

Latin and other Romance languages have more fun.

Natural intelligence is bad enough...jeez...artificial intelligence has gotta be worse.

Next party you're at, start talking about grammar and watch what happens.

Nothing personal...just assassination.

...Not that we're done with semantics--you never get done with semantics.

Now, back to space...

People already know everything.

Seeing all those zeroes in a row just sort of unhinges the mind.

Since, in fact, you have as many tinker toys as you want...

Sometimes the crap can be amusing in unexpected ways.

That's probably like me and mayonnaise.

That "that" that that precedes is a different "that."

There's nothing worse than that "Incomplete of Damocles."

They've got patois all over the place.

This is called "drawing and quartering," and it's considered a cruel and unusual punishment...but it didn't used to be.

This is not the usual way one approaches the universe.

Try walking into a pine tree some time and see what happens.

Violations of the law of gravity are severely punished automatically.

We haven't started "chemo-linguistics" yet, but...

What's the left side of a starfish?

You can only keep so many pronouns in the air at one time.

You have licked the surface of the iceberg.

You may feel validated as hell, but you still can't get to work.

You might not love your nose, but it's yours and there it is.